When you step inside the Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York, tread lavishly but delicately.
The crystalized flagship venue (the brand's first), crowned with a $27 million penthouse apartment and countless opulent Baccarat chandeliers, recalls the Gatsby-esque glamour of the roaring 1920s—although modernized with amenities befitting a sophisticated international traveler. Paris is surely proud.
The Baccarat Hotel & Residences has three respective entrances: one for the hotel, one for the restaurant and one for the residences, including the $27 million penthouse.
The Baccarat Hotel & Residences at 20 West 53rd Street (across from the Museum of Modern Art) is billed as a “contemporary Manhattan take on a classically elegant Parisian hôtel particulier.” It blends past and present (and artisanal crystal elements) to create grand and intimate spaces inspired by the famous brand’s noble 250-year heritage. The tower boasts the hotel, exclusive residences, and a restaurant, all with separate entrances.
The Baccarat Hotel & Residences features salon-style public spaces and 114 rooms.
The New York flagship hotel is Baccarat's first foray into hospitality. Next up: Morocco.
Other luxury brands have ventured into hospitality (Bvlgari, Armani, etc.) but none have sparkled as brightly or ambitiously. Future Baccarat Hotel & Residences will follow in Rabat, Morocco (2016) and in Dubai and Doha.
The building showcases 114 light-drenched rooms, 60 of which are luxurious residences with their own chandelier. The full-floor penthouse apartment is the pièce de résistance, boasting 4,600 square feet, four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, 14-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and 360 degree views. The design aesthetic was informed by Baccarat’s attention to detail and new materials.
“Every surface that we picked has some reference to a reflection of light,” interior designer Tony Ingrao told The New York Post.
Crystal chandeliers and accessories are a consistent staple in the hotel and each residence.
Each suite offers a classic and contemporary ambiance with a refined color palette of ivory, champagne, platinum, stainless steel and chocolate brown.
Architects and designers paid strict attention to the tiniest details. For instance, most surfaces of the hotel and residences reflect light, including door handles.
The project received All-Star treatment. Ingrao and Stephen Sills designed the building’s residences and ground-floor French restaurant Chevalier. Architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed the soaring state-of-the-art tower with its prismatic glass façade which resemble corrugated crystal curtains that reflect and refract light up and down the 50-story structure.
Paris-based Gilles & Boissier created the furniture for the hotel’s salon-style public spaces and the hotel’s 114-light-filled rooms and suites. The interior design firm’s authentic French influence also pervades every reflective surface—the sparkling mica-covered vaulted ceiling, silver-leafed wood paneling, pleated silk walls, monumental marble tables, even door handles.
Parisian art connoisseur, Frédéric Chambre curated extraordinary paintings and photographs from auction houses across Paris—blessing the Baccarat Hotel & Residences with a private collection that spans from the 18th century to today. Chambre also commissioned artists to create original radiant art pieces from 11 Baccarat Harcourt glasses—which are dramatically displayed in lit glass vitrines at the hotel.
The hotel features this grand salon and another petit salon.
Paris-based Gilles & Boissier created the furniture for the hotel.
The chandeliers evoke the elegance of Paris and the roaring 1920s Great Gatsby era.
Baccarat elegance inspired from Paris
The venue features modern amenities (fitness, spa and pool memberships), 24-hour personalized service (concierge, babysitters, in-home chefs), and enough crystal for recording artist Sia to swing from a Chandelier for months. Except you really don’t want to swing from these decorative works of art. It’s more apropos to lounge in the Grand Salon with a glass of wine or cup of tea; or relax in the Petit Salon with a good book or game of chess. Residents and hotel visitors even have access to Citroën City Car, a classic 1970 Baccarat-red sedan which chauffeurs guests anywhere within a 15-block radius from the hotel.
Hotel suites, such as the aristocratic-inspired one-bedroom Baccarat Suite, present both a classic and contemporary ambiance, with refined palettes in champagne, ivory, platinum, stainless steel and chocolate brown. These suites (including the Classic King suite with its oversized four-poster king bed) boast custom-made Mascioni jacquard linens, Italian robes, Baccarat crystal accessories, white marble spa bathrooms with deep soaking tubs and glass-walled showers, and original artwork and drawings from the Baccarat collection, fully stocked Baccarat-red enamel bars and minibars, delicacies from the Parisian gourmet shop Fauchon, and and exclusive amenities created by Maison Francis Kurkdjian Paris.
The Baccarat Hotel and Residences borrows from the rich history of the famous crystal maker.
If we had a crystal ball, we’d guess the elegant Baccarat Hotel & Residences will succeed. But we don’t need a crystal ball here—a crystal clear chandelier will do just fine.
